It's not about them, it's about us

ABSOLUTELY NOT WORK SAFE.

The Rude Pundit cuts through the crap and tells us what the unwillingness of this nation to reject torture really means:

If you haven't yet read the New York Times article on just how deranged the Bush administration is about covering its ass over torture, do it and then come back here. The Rude Pundit will wait...

Yeah, yeah, it's long. Get the fuck back there and finish it. Jesus, short attention-spanned motherfuckers.

You done? Good. Let's get going here:

In essence, what that article by Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen said is that conversations went on in the White House and the Justice Department in the United States that went something like this: Bush might say, "Hey, all that fucked-up shit we've been doing to prisoners, how much of it can we still do?"

To which some random bloodthirsty Yoo or Addington would say, "Oh, fuck, we can do whatever the fuck we want."

And some plaintive Comey or Goldsmith would say, "Umm, we kinda got treaties and shit, maybe a few laws that might say we should back off."

And some Cheney or, to a lesser extent, Gonzales would say, "Yeah, right, fuck you, Comey or Goldsmith. Yoo or Addington, kick out the enhanced interrogation jams and tell those CIA pussies who wanna know if shit's legal that we got their backs."
....

And some Cheney or, to an even lesser extent, Gonzales would go, "Call the CIA. Tell 'em naked, drownin', sleepless brown people is a-okay."

And Bush would say, "I'm glad we decided we're not war criminals. Now lemme go tell Umerka we done made 'em more securer."

And then in some brightly-lit metal cell at Bagram Air Base or Gitmo, ice cold water was thrown on a naked man from Iraq, with the water tosser feeling assured that what he was doing was good and right for God and country.

A few years back, a social worker friend gave the Rude Pundit a simple moral question that seems so obvious once it's said, but it hangs over the Rude Pundit constantly. He was looking for absolution for some betrayal of trust he wanted to commit. The friend said, "You have to ask yourself, 'At the end of the day, what kind of person do I want to be?'" The Rude Pundit decided he wasn't that kind of person. No, he ain't a saint, but he ain't outright cruel.

The Rude Pundit has not been one of the loud drum beaters for impeachment out here in Left Blogsylvania because of the practicality of achieving it. But he has to say that the longer these depraved motherfuckers get to go unpunished, the more obvious it is that the Congress and, indeed, the citizens of this fallen nation have decided what kind of people they are.

I don't think there is any way to force Bush and Cheney from power before the end of the term, so the focus has to be on two things:

1. Elect a president who has a freaking clue about foreign affairs and international law. That means Edwards, Kucinch and Gravel are out. Period. Not even VP material.
   
2. Elect as large a majority in Congress, particularly the Senate, as we can get to keep the Rethugs sidelined. The prospects are looking better by the day.

If we want any hope of help on extricating ourselves from Bush's war without having our military destroyed in the process, we have to show that we're serious about upholding the Geneva Conventions and destroying Cheney's imperial framework. Otherwise, we'll be left to our own increasingly isolated and powerless devices. Failure to do so, and we will get what we deserve.

Rejection of the Cheney doctrine is the first step to the refoundation of the republic.